On Twitter I asked about R packages people are using to conduct spatial analysis. I’m interested in knowing what people are actually using on a day-to-day basis. It goes without saying that this is extraordinarily unscientific but I got 27 replies with a total of 45 packages, many of which I’ve never heard of before (the full list is below).
In total, 18 of these packages were listed by more than one person and seven were listed by at least five people.
Not surprisingly to me sf and raster lead the way and there are still a lot of people using sp. Note that I’d probably argue if you’re using sp for more than working with legacy code/packages it’s time to switch to sf!
For mapping leaflet, tmap and mapview were most reported but there was some enthusiasm for cartography.
Update May 10, 2019: there were some additional replies since I wrote this post. These mostly followed the pattern from the previous tweets (sf, raster, sp etc) there were also a couple of additions (mapdeck, rnaturalearth, landscapemetrics). I’ve added these to the table but I have not updated the table counts.
The packages I most commonly use
In terms of my own use of packages, in order of use, I’d say sf, raster, tmap, gstat, rmapshaper plus tigris/tidycensus.
My original tweet
For reference, this is a list of the monthly downloads for packages from the R spatial task view. Beyond this, mapview is ranked 26 with 19k downloads and tmap is 29th with 16k downloads, #rstats pic.twitter.com/cGQyU6OsMS
— Zev Ross (@zevross) April 30, 2019
R packages for spatial analysis sorted by number of people reporting usage
| R package | Replies |
| sf | 16 |
| raster | 11 |
| ggplot | 9 |
| sp | 8 |
| leaflet | 8 |
| tmap | 6 |
| mapview | 5 |
| rgdal | 4 |
| cartography | 3 |
| gstat | 3 |
| tigris | 3 |
| ggmap | 2 |
| ggspatial | 2 |
| rgeos | 2 |
| rgrass7 | 2 |
| spatstat | 2 |
| spdep | 2 |
| stars | 2 |
| mapdeck | 2 |
| tidycensus | 2 |
| arcgisbridge | 1 |
| gdalUtils | 1 |
| geobuffer | 1 |
| geogrid | 1 |
| ggsn | 1 |
| lwgeom | 1 |
| mapedit | 1 |
| maptools | 1 |
| proj4 | 1 |
| rasterVis | 1 |
| rmapshaper | 1 |
| RSToolbox | 1 |
| Sen2agri | 1 |
| spatialEco | 1 |
| tricolore | 1 |
| vegan | 1 |
| rwgeom | 1 |
| Rpostgres | 1 |
| Rczechia | 1 |
| concaveman | 1 |
| vapour | 1 |
| geojsonio | 1 |
| rayshader | 1 |
| leastcostpath | 1 |
| kernlab | 1 |
| geoR | 1 |
| landscapemetrics | 1 |
| rnaturalearch | 1 |
Code to count downloads of the packages
This code takes the list of spatial-related packages on the CRAN Task View: Analysis of Spatial Data and orders them by number of monthly downloads of the package. This list is probably less helpful as it includes dependencies but is interesting nonetheless. Code followed by the table.
| package | count |
| igraph | 423,428 |
| RColorBrewer | 416,944 |
| sp | 213,365 |
| viridis | 190,704 |
| maptools | 182,899 |
| nlme | 134,431 |
| sf | 111,522 |
| rgdal | 109,544 |
| classInt | 88,706 |
| raster | 83,411 |
| maps | 69,265 |
| rgeos | 60,542 |
| leaflet | 51,572 |
| vegan | 44,819 |
| spdep | 43,552 |
| deldir | 40,745 |
| ggmap | 38,670 |
| RPostgreSQL | 35,908 |
| ade4 | 32,157 |
| fields | 32,089 |
| RgoogleMaps | 29,833 |
| mapproj | 28,061 |
| geosphere | 21,931 |
| spatstat | 21,827 |
| gstat | 20,669 |
| mapview | 19,378 |
| ncdf4 | 17,986 |
| lwgeom | 17,642 |
| tmap | 17,040 |
| spacetime | 13,279 |
| pastecs | 12,900 |
| mapdata | 12,418 |
| geojsonio | 10,029 |
| splancs | 9,803 |
| stars | 9,006 |
| akima | 8,194 |
| RandomFields | 7,759 |
| rasterVis | 7,355 |
| adehabitatMA | 6,749 |
| geoR | 6,611 |
| geojson | 6,522 |
| sgeostat | 6,500 |
| adehabitatLT | 6,376 |
| rworldmap | 6,201 |
| RNetCDF | 6,093 |
| shapefiles | 5,614 |
| tigris | 5,457 |
| ash | 5,435 |
| spatial | 5,157 |
| plotKML | 4,407 |
| adehabitatHR | 4,373 |
| rnaturalearth | 4,358 |
| gdalUtils | 4,312 |
| tripack | 4,147 |
| geonames | 3,883 |
| automap | 3,819 |
| PBSmapping | 3,617 |
| spaMM | 3,593 |
| OpenStreetMap | 3,469 |
| rgbif | 3,416 |
| splm | 3,273 |
| MBA | 3,260 |
| cartogram | 3,198 |
| tidycensus | 3,017 |
| tgp | 2,978 |
| RSAGA | 2,723 |
| geostatsp | 2,620 |
| spatialreg | 2,585 |
| gdistance | 2,413 |
| cshapes | 2,394 |
| geoRglm | 2,326 |
| geoaxe | 2,250 |
| GWmodel | 2,114 |
| cartography | 2,106 |
| adehabitatHS | 1,996 |
| SpatialEpi | 1,980 |
| mapedit | 1,903 |
| ggsn | 1,900 |
| sphet | 1,821 |
| Guerry | 1,709 |
| stplanr | 1,695 |
| spgwr | 1,672 |
| rworldxtra | 1,593 |
| GEOmap | 1,438 |
| ncf | 1,435 |
| spsurvey | 1,369 |
| lctools | 1,361 |
| spBayes | 1,349 |
| taRifx | 1,322 |
| marmap | 1,291 |
| CARBayes | 1,223 |
| PBSmodelling | 1,213 |
| RQGIS | 1,200 |
| regress | 1,172 |
| osmar | 1,166 |
| rgrass7 | 1,151 |
| trip | 1,105 |
| siplab | 1,084 |
| georob | 1,076 |
| spgrass6 | 998 |
| plotGoogleMaps | 937 |
| landscapemetrics | 921 |
| aspace | 898 |
| geomapdata | 898 |
| rpostgis | 883 |
| cleangeo | 880 |
| inlmisc | 854 |
| SpatialExtremes | 846 |
| dbmss | 839 |
| spatial.tools | 814 |
| SpatialTools | 791 |
| geogrid | 771 |
| spatialsegregation | 768 |
| leafletR | 762 |
| ads | 747 |
| DCluster | 726 |
| landsat | 719 |
| constrainedKriging | 707 |
| spTimer | 698 |
| PReMiuM | 693 |
| latticeDensity | 689 |
| spcosa | 685 |
| gmt | 680 |
| intamap | 680 |
| sparr | 678 |
| lawn | 669 |
| CompRandFld | 658 |
| FRK | 658 |
| diseasemapping | 651 |
| McSpatial | 638 |
| ecespa | 635 |
| spatialprobit | 632 |
| spatialCovariance | 629 |
| AMOEBA | 628 |
| mapmisc | 622 |
| ngspatial | 619 |
| rangeMapper | 613 |
| RSurvey | 612 |
| RArcInfo | 604 |
| wkb | 601 |
| ModelMap | 595 |
| SpatialPosition | 590 |
| recmap | 586 |
| geometa | 585 |
| DSpat | 584 |
| ramps | 575 |
| statebins | 575 |
| spatgraphs | 571 |
| SSN | 567 |
| geospt | 566 |
| postGIStools | 566 |
| FieldSim | 565 |
| micromap | 555 |
| seg | 554 |
| ipdw | 547 |
| spatsurv | 546 |
| rtop | 545 |
| areal | 544 |
| spmoran | 542 |
| spBayesSurv | 536 |
| shp2graph | 524 |
| tripEstimation | 519 |
| smacpod | 517 |
| ExceedanceTools | 514 |
| spm | 514 |
| geosapi | 511 |
| gwrr | 502 |
| geospacom | 501 |
| spsann | 500 |
| GriegSmith | 494 |
| sperrorest | 487 |
| ProbitSpatial | 485 |
| UScensus2000tract | 481 |
| Stem | 479 |
| HSAR | 474 |
| RPyGeo | 461 |
| spind | 460 |
| gear | 459 |
| magclass | 449 |
| Watersheds | 448 |
| spacom | 447 |
| vardiag | 446 |
| UScensus2000cdp | 444 |
| ows4R | 442 |
| geonapi | 440 |
| smerc | 440 |
| vec2dtransf | 438 |
| OasisR | 420 |
| quickmapr | 419 |
| starma | 418 |
| spanel | 406 |
| S2sls | 387 |
| spselect | 378 |
| qualmap | 360 |
| rcosmo | 360 |